What went wrong with night time

I have been able to found some of the answers
* In 1991 it was MAY – HTV:: August – meridian and September – Anglia as to when there give up their own services.
* it was in 2000 when UMN compaines started taken the London feed , ( 1997 was when HTV was actually brought over by UNM, in 1996 UMN brought 20% from STV)
* it was in September when LWT/Thames start there 24 hours in 1987

However, there are still a few unknowns, such as:

* When Did STV started its 24 hour service early in 1988?
* Did any region apart from Central NOT take "Night Network"
* Any ides as to why HTV, Anglia and TVS got rid of their services
* Can anyone remember other UK shows made for night times, 89 - 93, expect for Hit man, James whales and Cue the music.

* When Did Granada service get axed in 1995? It seems it was still operating in May 1995 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh0tnuJxkJQ Which does give Granada the honer of having the longest running night time ident on ITV.

There is one question that has yet to be looked at by anyone, If Nightime is so poor in trying to attract audiences, then how did ITV and others get so many people phoning in for those quiz show?
That could be the answers, have a quiz show as well as other better show around it:

HTV, Anglia and TVS will have scrapped their services for fairly obvious reasons I'd say.

The finances of the through the night services were marginal at best. Already, the small stations (Tyne Tees, TSW, Border, Ulster, Grampian) had decided that they could not afford such a service. The revenue gained would not have covered the costs of acquiring programming, employing CAs and technical staff etc etc.

HTV and Anglia were not that much bigger than these small stations. As the recession of the early 90s took hold advertising revenues fell. What had been unviable for Tyne Tees and TSW two or three years previously but had been employed at these larger stations, now was becoming unviable there as well.

Bear in mind that at least two stations (Tyne Tees and Ulster) stopped bothering with adverts after 2am. This reflects how meagre the revenues truly were.

TVS closed theirs for different reasons, related to the need to save money ahead of the closure of the station.

I think the real question should be, why did STV continue? They can't have been making any money out of it. They only reasons I can think of were corporate pride, and a perceived requirement to provide a distinctly Scottish service.

By the way, I know for a fact after speaking with Tyne Tees staff, that TTTV were extremely reluctant to introduce a through the night service. They were planning on running to 2am in early 1988, but had decided that 24 hour TV was not an option. They were essentially bounced into the idea by the IBA. Apparently Tyne Tees only signed up to the service for three months, being almost unique in the network in their determination not to go 24 hour. They had been ready to pull the plug after Christmas 1988, but the viewing figures were just about enough to persuade them to let it continue.

What great clips, Night Network just reeks of late 80's and obviously owes a lot to Network 7. I was too young to stay up for it at the time but I do remember it being quite hyped and much talked about - probably more people talked about it than actually watched it!

Between NN and TVam the programmes were branded as 'Thru to 6':

Because it doesn't attract a big enough audience to make money through advertising but it does attract a big enough one to generate income from phone calls

All 3 had in-vision CA, I wonder why there didn't just pre-record, must have been bad, I never know Ulster stopped playing ads after 2am, I know TT did this ( up until YTV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5MBYL9I2HQ

It does get worse as it seem what some said here " the tapes were just left to run and anything could happen" DID! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT57AZBPHO8



Saying that Central and Yorkshire, in 1991 did not join anyone else, saying that there were one of the Big 5,
I have to agree with you points STV was the only Non big 5 still standing fast! there even spent MORE money on night with new set of idents!



That fits another piece in, so there were only planed to run from Sept - xmas? Im surprised there just did not let Granada so there own ads, so there could switch off.

ALSO Inspector Sands, thanks for that pic, I never seen that before, although were did you found that.

There would have been someone there operating/monitoring the playout at each station, albeit fewer than during the day.


I grabbed it years ago from an old videotape. In this case it was a static slide shown just before TVam started

Can you remember what programmes were used to fill up the 2 hour gap on "Thur to 6"?

Tyne Tees replicated the Channel Four setup on overnight adverts. The system was fully automated (in contrast to the main service which had barely any automation at all right up until 1993), and, like most of these systems the first the controller would have known about it was when the playout failed completely.

TTTV did have ads until 6am until 1991. It was at this point that they went home at 2am -- and if Channel Four had already closed down at any point, the tx control was *literally* unmanned.

What I don't understand is that Ch4 only ever had 6 regional for adverts, ( and still do) So even if that was the case, wouldn't it be Granada or Yorkshire be more responsible for the ch4 ads.

This would explain why STV, as there I dare say did all of Scotland?

Not true. Tyne Tees fed out adverts up to 1993 for Channel Four. They were regional and frequently had local adverts interspersed.

So before 1993 Ch4 had 14 different set of adverts going out at the same time.

I wonder why there reduced the numbers, it's a shame ch4 could not have kept local ads goingf

Up until Dec 31 1992 each ITV company (with the exception of Channel) were responsible for providing the ad breaks on C4 in their respective regions. That was because ITV paid for the running of C4, but in return kept the ad revenue. STV and Grampian provided the C4 ads separately from Glasgow and Aberdeen. HTV Cardiff provided the ads on S4C.

From Jan 1 1993, C4 became responsible for selling and transmitting their own ads, and started to become self financing. From that point they operated 6 macro regions for ads, all played out from London. That arrangement continues to this day.